Living the web dream.

Wow, stackoverflow erases the page if you type a non-conforming character in the user name.

Web sites often tell you how to type a date but they don't tell you their password rules until you break them, then they punish you by erasing everything you wrote and make you write it again.

Web development is getting so flexible that it is hard to believe this is a technical problem. This must be the choice of a person. A person who believes in punishment as a first response. All stick, no carrot. I hope they are comfortable with the decisions they have made for themselves.